Alarming Female

Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) ran for office in 1968 and became the first African American woman elected to Congress. She hired an all-female staff and fought for civil rights and women’s rights; she was cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). A vocal critic of the Vietnam War, Chisholm was a champion of the poor and fought for increased funding for education. In 1970 she was elected to a second term in Congress. In 1972, she became the first woman to launch a major campaign for the US presidency, and though she did not win her party’s nomination, she received 151 delegate votes.

What she had to say about women, men, and politics is as true now as it was then. Pity so little has changed.

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I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people.

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There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.

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The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.

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One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she’s probably a lesbian.

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Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

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Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes.

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The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It’s a girl.

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It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.

Photo credit: Congressmember Shirley Chisholm at a NOW-sponsored rally on the presidential campaign trail in 1972. Photo by Rose Greene. Linked to the NOW website.

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I’m off to NYC for a few days for work ~ imagine all the cool photos I’ll have to play with when I return!